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John Langshaw Austin
Berdini, Federica; Bianchi, Claudia
2013
Abstract
John Langshaw Austin (1911-1960) was one of the most influential British philosophers of his time, for his rigorous thought, extraordinary personality and innovative philosophical method. According to John Searle, Austin was a philosopher both passionately loved and hated by his contemporaries, because, like Socrates, he seemed to destroy all philosophical orthodoxy without presenting an alternative, and equally comforting, orthodoxy. Austin’s work is known for two major contributions to contemporary philosophy. On the one hand, his ‘linguistic phenomenology’, a peculiar method of philosophical analysis of the concepts and ways of expression of everyday language. On the other hand, Speech Act Theory, the idea of a performative dimension in any use of the language: with a well-known slogan, “to say something is to do something.” Speech Act Theory has had consequences and import in research fields as diverse as philosophy of language, ethics, political philosophy, philosophy of law, linguistics, artificial intelligence and feminist philosophy. Here we will focus on Austin’s contributions to philosophy of language, epistemology and philosophy of action, and on two main developments of speech act theory: the dispute between conventionalism and intentionalism on the one hand, and the debate on free speech, pornography, and censorship on the other.
Journal
Publisher
EUT Edizioni Università di Trieste
Source
Federica Berdini e Claudia Bianchi, "John Langshaw Austin", in "APhEx 7", 2013, pp. 37
Languages
it
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